The long-serving general director of the Bolshoi Theatre has been fired in the
wake of an acid-throwing attack on the theatre's ballet master.

Anatoly Iksanov had presided over years of public feuding between performers and management but he came under particular pressure in January when backstage intrigues erupted into violence with the assault on the Bolshoi ballet’s artistic director, Sergei Filin.

Russia's culture minister Vladimir Medinsky praised Mr Iksanov, 61, for his 13 years’ service at the helm of the theatre, and for overseeing its reconstruction, but hinted that his ousting was connected to the Filin affair.

“Everybody perfectly understands that human powers have a limit,” said Mr Medinsky at a meeting with the theatre’s senior staff. “The difficult situation demonstrates that the theatre needs renewal. This is not a spontaneous decision.”

Mr Iksanov’s contract was to expire in 2014 and he had been expected to work until at least the end of this season. He thanked colleagues but did not comment on his dismissal. He was replaced by Vladimir Urin, head of the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Music Theatre, another leading opera and ballet company.

The Bolshoi, a crucible of Russian cultural life, has been plagued for years by clashes - both backstage and painfully public - between dancers and management.

Ballerina Anastasiya Volochkova was controversially sacked from the theatre in 2003 after Mr Iksanov said she was “too fat” to be lifted by her male partners. The jilted Miss Volochkova has sniped at the Bolshoi ever since.

On January 17th this year another conflict broke into the open when an assailant tossed a jar of sulphuric acid into Mr Filin’s eyes as he returned home from a performance at the Moscow Art Theatre.

Pavel Dmitrichenko, 29, a dancer with the Bolshoi, later was said to have admitted ordering the attack and is currently in detention awaiting trial on charges of causing grievous bodily harm. It is thought he was taking revenge for Mr Filin denying a role to his girlfriend, also a dancer.

Mr Iksanov had repeatedly exchanged public barbs with Nikolai Tsiskaridze, the Bolshoi’s principal dancer, who initially came under suspicion in the attack on Mr Filin. Following the assault, Mr Iksanov said in a magazine interview that “everything which happened is a logical result of the mayhem that was created by Nikolai Maksimovich Tsiskaridze”.

Mr Tsiskaridze, 39, who had earlier lobbied to oust Mr Iksanov, complained that he was subject of a smear campaign after criticising the Bolshoi over artistic and management decisions, and suggesting Mr Dmitrichenko had been pressured into confessing. The theatre did not renew his contracts when they expired last month.